Detained US contractor goes on trial in Cuba

FILE - In this file handout photo provided by the Gross family shows Alan and Judy Gross. Gross goes to trial Friday March 4, 2011 in Cuba on charges he sought to undermine Cuba's government by bringing communications equipment onto the island illegally. Gross is facing a possible 20-year sentence for "acts against the integrity and independence" of Cuba. (AP Photo/Gross Family, File)
— AP

FILE - In this file handout photo provided by the Gross family shows Alan and Judy Gross. Gross goes to trial Friday March 4, 2011 in Cuba on charges he sought to undermine Cuba's government by bringing communications equipment onto the island illegally. Gross is facing a possible 20-year sentence for "acts against the integrity and independence" of Cuba. (AP Photo/Gross Family, File)
/ AP

HAVANA 
More than a man's fate will be at stake when U.S. contractor Alan Gross goes to trial Friday on charges he sought to undermine Cuba's government by bringing communications equipment onto the island illegally.

U.S. officials have made clear that no meaningful rapprochement between the two Cold War enemies is possible while the 61-year-old Maryland native remains in jail. And with Gross facing a possible 20-year sentence for "acts against the integrity and independence" of Cuba, that could put relations into a long, deep freeze.

"If they sentence him to 20 years and then put him in prison ... I think it will have a very damaging effect on US-Cuban relations," said Wayne Smith, a former top U.S. diplomat in Havana and senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for International Policy.

Gross was working for the Bethesda-based Development Associates International on a USAID program that promotes democracy when he was arrested in December 2009. He has been held since then in Havana's maximum-security Villa Marista prison, most of that time without charge.

His family, and U.S. and company officials say he was bringing communications equipment to Cuba's 1,500-strong Jewish community. Cuban Jewish groups deny having anything to do with him, and there is even speculation that leaders of the Jewish community might testify against him.

Gross' case will be decided by a panel of five black-robed magistrates - three of them professional, and two average Cuban citizens specially trained to decide cases who are impaneled for one month. A simple majority is enough to convict him.

The trial is expected to be over in a day or two, with a verdict announced immediately thereafter. Sentencing, should Gross be convicted, would likely come about two weeks later. Under Cuban law, he has the right to appeal any conviction, and can win a sentence reduction because he is more than 60 years old.

State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley said he hoped Gross would be allowed to come home soon. "He has been in prison for too long," he said.

Gross's U.S.-based family lawyer, Peter J. Kahn, was flying to Havana for the proceedings, and he had a Cuban lawyer representing him as well. It was not clear if his wife, Judy, would attend.

Gloria Berbena, a spokeswoman for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, said consular representatives last met with Gross on Tuesday, and that they had been told they can attend the trial as well.

Calls for Gross' release have poured in as the trial has approached, from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who sent an open letter to Cuban President Raul Castro and offered to fly to Havana personally to mediate the case; and from Jewish groups including the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, who say Gross was simply trying to help and had no idea what he was doing was in violation of Cuban law.

Judy Gross appealed to the Cuban government to let her husband go home on humanitarian grounds, saying in a written response to questions submitted by The Associated Press last week that Gross' daughter and mother are both suffering from cancer, and that he has lost 90 pounds (40 kilograms) in prison.